Ann Credible's Holidays Made Possible
by levi2000a1
Summary: Holidays are a time of happiness, but what happens when one or more people might have to rethink what that really means? My entry for whitem's 6th Annual SnowDaze Holiday Story Contest.


All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

I'm late with this. Very late. So I have to only hope you all had some very happy holidays.

 **As always, since this story is about**

 **Thanksgiving,**

 **I'd like to dedicate it to the memory of my father**

 **who passed away early one Thanksgiving morning**

 **many years ago.**

 **I still miss him.**

xxxxxxxxxxx

She opened her eyes and glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand by the bed. It read 6:48 AM; twelve minutes before she wanted to get up. Reaching over, being careful not to wake her still sleeping husband, Anne turned the alarm off and slid out of bed to start the day. Even though she'd tried to be as quiet as possible, he stirred and asked with a voice that wasn't even half awake, "Anne? Everything alright?"

As she was putting on her robe, she she lightly touched his arm and kissed him on the fore head and said, "Yes dear. I'm just going downstairs to start the turkey."

That small reassurance was all it took for James to mumble, "Oh. Well, let me know if you need any help Honey." as he rolled over and went back to sleep.

She smiled at his naked back as she thought that the old and familiar dance had begun that they've danced for over twenty seven years. His offering to help and then promptly falling back to sleep. She had never taken him up on his offer, never doubting in the sincerity of it, it was just because this was _her_ day. Her day to show how much she loved her family and how thankful she was for them by preparing their Thanksgiving Day meal. Her reward was listening to the moans and groans of everybody after they ate, complaining that they'd eaten to much, but it was just so good that they couldn't stop. That was all the thanks she wanted on this one day.

The fact that this would probably be the last time she would entertain this many people on this day saddened her a little. Kim and Ron were married last June so they would be starting their own family traditions soon, just as soon as they got an apartment big enough to hold their combined family. Both of the twins had found girls and were engaged, even though both of the girls lived in separate cities on opposite coasts. They would be moving out after their weddings too. As it was, they were each going to visit them for the Christmas and New Year's holidays and wouldn't be in Middleton then. That would make plenty of room for Ron's parents and little Hana to share with them.

Maybe this was that 'empty nest' syndrome that she'd heard about that she was starting to feel. She wished her mother had prepared her for this the way she had spent so much time preparing her for Thanksgiving and explaining why it would always bethe best way to show her love for everyone.

 _(Flashback to her mother preparing Thanksgiving when Anne was eight years old.)_

" _Annie, the one thing you have to understand is that this is the one day that everything is on us."_

" _But mom, what about Christmas and all the other holidays?"_

" _The other holidays have different meanings. Christmas is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and exchange presents, like the Wise men did and it's more about family and showing your love by giving presents. The meal is more secondary. You can have a nice meal and everyone's happy, but Thanksgiving, the meal is how we show our love and feelings for everyone and how thankful we are to have them in our lives."_

All the things she'd learned about life's meanings and the little facts of life she'd learned while helping her mother in the kitchen. It always pained her that she'd never really had the chance to pass them onto her own daughter who was always off saving the world and never had the inclination to venture into the kitchen when the dinner was being prepared. But then, that had been partly her fault too.

 _Kim was almost four at the time and excited, not only because she was going to help her mother for the first time with the cranberry celebration, but also because it was one of the few times that both sets of her grandparents were there for the holiday. Anne's mother and James's mother were there to help and share their memories and help build new ones for the young mother and the next generation. Anne's mother was even taking pictures of the entire dinner preparation._

 _Kim was in a convert kitchen chair, basically an overgrown booster seat, so she would be more a part of things almost being on the same level as the adults. She was to be in charge of the cranberry celebration which was basically a cranberry, fruit relish with a heavy dose of black cherry syrup. The adults were each taking turns "helping" her by loading the ingredients in the blender as they could while working on the other dishes being prepared. Nana Possible just finished adding the syrup in so all that was left was to put the top on so Kimmie could hit the chop button. But when she looked, Nana didn't see it anywhere. She asked her daughter in law where it was. Anne replied that it had been right next to it. So all three of the mothers started looking on the counter and table tops for it and at one point, they all had their back to the adventurous little redhead, and that one instant was all it took._

 _The little girl wanted to help and she wanted to help right now, so using the electric cord she pulled the blender to her and pushed the button. But she pushed the puree button instead of the chop button. _

_If it had been the sound of a gun being shot behind them the three adult women wouldn't have reacted any differently as the all turned and started moving. Nana was the closest to the wall outlet so she reached out to pull the plug while Anne and her mother, both being doctors, rushed to Kim to make sure that she hadn't had her hand in the blender when she turned it on._

 _After checking all her fingers and making sure they were all there on her miraculously still clean hands, then they looked at her face. Or her head rather. Where a little girl with pigtails had been sitting, now sat what looked like a lumpy, melting jello molded head of a rabbit with droopy ears._

" _Kimmie?" called Anne as she tried to contain her nervous giggle at the sight and having gotten over her scare. But when two great big white circles appeared in that jello mold as Kim opened her eyes, Anne lost it and started laughing. Both her own mother and Nana broke out about the same time with her mother only able to contain herself long enough to snap off a couple of pictures with her Instamatic camera using up the last of that flash cube._

 _It wasn't till Anne started to reach for Kim to go and clean her up that her daughter's mouth opened and she started shiver like what she appeared to be and then she began to cry._

 _And cry loud enough that it should have waken the entire neighborhood. It took all three of the women almost an hour to calm her down enough that she could be cleaned up and then she wanted nothing to do with going back into to kitchen or anywhere near that blender. Something she would carry with her till late in her high school years when she took a class in home economics._

 _Anne kept her copies of the pictures her mother gave her from that day hidden away in a drawer of the china cabinet so her daughter wouldn't be reminded of it._

She was so caught up in those memories that she failed to notice that the lights were already on in the kitchen behind the swinging door that separated it from the dinning room. It wasn't till she started to push it open that she knew something was amiss when she heard her daughter's voice. When she pushed open the door, there was Kim and Ron both along with a turkey that looked like it was ready to be popped into the oven along with all the groceries necessary to make dinner.

"What's going...?" she stammered, mostly from the shock of the situation.

"Happy thanksgiving!" replied the newlyweds as if they'd rehearsed it.

"Kim told me how much effort and work you put into your Thanksgiving days meal." started Ron.

"So we decided to give you an early Christmas present." continued Kim.

"or Hanukkah present." added her husband.

"and give you the day off while,"

"we take over the chores and give you the day,"

"To relax for a change." finished Kim.

After seeing the shocked look still on her mother's face, Kim added. "Don't worry Mom. Ron's going to do most of the cooking. I'm just going to help."

"Ah. But I..." she looked at both of them feeling more dumbstruck than anything.

After a too long a pause with no further reaction, Kim added, "By that I meant I'll stand over here and be prepared to not get in the way. ." (Pause.) Unless he really needs something. Or asks."

Ann's gaze slowly shifted down as she slowly turned and started to head back into the dinning area.

"Kim. Did we do something wrong?" asked Ron. I thought you said she'd be happy at the chance of not having to cook. She didn't look to happy about it to me."

"No. She didn't." Kim replied and after taking two seconds to think about what could be the problem she added, "I'll go talk to her."

When Ron started to follow her, she put her hand on his chest and said. "Maybe it'd be better if I talked to her alone. Woman to woman."

He slowly nodded as he agreed. He'd just wanted to make sure they hadn't done something to upset his new mother in law.

Kim held the swinging door and allowed it to shut quietly behind her as she saw her mother sitting at the table looking at something in her hand and for the first time in her life, her mother looked tired. She'd seen her when she was totally exhausted. She'd seen her when she could barely put one foot in front of the other. This was something else. She looked emotionally tired. She looked...

…...old.

Hesitantly Kim called, "Mom?" to see her mother's head turn to give her a half hearted smile that disappeared way to quickly as she turned what could have been a picture over and set it on the table in front of her. Moving over to sit down in the chair next to Anne's, Kim laid her hand on her shoulder and asked, "Did we do something wrong Mom? I know how much work you put into cooking our holiday meals and I thought..."

"Oh Kim. It's not work.

At least not to me. I enjoy it."

"But Mom. You're one of the top neurosurgeons in the country. You don't need to ….

"It may seem to be a bit old fashioned, but it's one of the ways I show my family how much I love them and how grateful I am to have you all as a part of my world." finished her mother.

"I just wish we'd had the opportunity to let me pass on some stories that are best done in the kitchen while cooking the meals.

"Mom you know that cooking was never really my thing. I mean..."

Anne turned over the picture so it was now face up and as she showed it to Kim, she said, "I know. And I think that I could be the reason for that."

Kim looked at the picture that she'd never seen before, at first wondering what she was looking at. She recognized the kitchen from the old house, the one that was destroyed back when she graduated high school, but that little gummy head, had her...then it struck her as a very old memory came to her. Probably the oldest memory she had.

"I remember this." she said, more surprised than anything.

"You remember it? But Kim, you weren't even four."

"I remember because it was the only time the three women that I loved the most had laughed at me. I remember trying to do something by myself and failing and you all laughed at me. That may have been why I started helping people so much. To make them and you proud of me. "

"Oh Kim. I'm sorry you think that. Our laughing was more of a relief that you hadn't been hurt because we all took our eyes off of you for just a few seconds. I know I can speak for you two grandmothers when I say they were always proud of you even if you'd never saved the world.

And after a few seconds pause, "Just like your father and I have always been. So very, very proud of you."

Both women pulled the other one close as they shared a mother daughter moment. For Kim it was the release from the idea that both of her grandmothers and mother had laughed because they were worried so long ago instead of what she'd thought. For Anne it was the fact that she wasn't exactly to blame for her daughter's fear of the kitchen, just for her not wanting to fail at anything in her life. They held each other for a few minuted till the moment passed and Anne stood up and put the old picture back where she'd kept it for all these years. Kim made a note of where that hiding place was.

When her mother sat back down, Kim asked, "So will you tell me one?"

"One what dear?"

"You said something about wanting to pass on some stories to me while cooking. So tell me one. Please and thank you."

"Oh but Kim. Like I said they are best told..."

"Please Mom?"

Her mother looked down at an invisible spot on the dinning table and held her silence so long that Kim was beginning to think that she wasn't going to reply, but when she did it totally caught her off guard.

"Have I ever told you" started Anne in a hesitant voice. "why our family is like turkey gravy?"

Kim almost didn't reply the comment making no sense to her. Then she remembered that Ron would do the same sort of thing sometimes. Tell something unrelated to the original question which lead to an answer to the question.

"No Mom. You never did."

"You know how gravy is made, right?"

"Basically. I mean I remember what I was taught in that college course I took. You take the drippings and add in something to thicken it..."

"I use flour." injected Anne.

"and then you add in the..."

"Let's start with just that, Kim. Now what are drippings?"

"Well, they are the juices that are left over after baking the turkey."

"Yes, but what are they?"

"I don't know what you mean Mom."

"The juices are made up of two things. The grease that comes out of the fats along with the remaining moisture left. Grease or oils and moisture which is made up of mostly water. So in order to make your gravy you are attempting to mix oil and water with flour to keep them mixed." Anne said as she smiled a little bit. Now, would it be safe to say that you and your brothers don't get along all that well?"

"Huh?" asked Kim who was keeping up with the cooking lesson but suddenly found herself lost.

"Or that neither you or them get along to well with your cousin Larry?"

"Wellllll. I mean I love them all but sometimes..."

"I'm sure they feel the same way about you. So you and the twins get along sometimes like mixing oil and water. And the same for cousin Larry."

"Yeah." answered Kim sort of sheepishly.

"But you all still love one another."

"I think they both love me. At least I hope they do." answered Kim.

"They do Kim." reassured her mother.

"Now back in my mother's day, the word flour, the cooking ingredient which sounds like flower, the bloom of a plant, meant something special. It meant love. That why our family is so strong. Even though we are all different people and sometimes get along like trying to mix oil and water, love holds us together. Just like the other kind of flour can hold oil and water together to make gravy."

"So that's why our family is like gravy." said Kim after she understood what her mother was saying. "We're both held together with flour/flower, or love."

"Exactly!" laughed Anne as she had at least managed to pass on this one little story to her daughter. Maybe a little later than she'd ever thought, but it still got passed on.

"I'll have to remember that when I'm pouring the gravy on my mashed potatoes." said Kim with a smile, which prompted her mother to start chuckling.

"What Mom?''

"The first Thanksgiving after your father and I were married, I was making my first solo attempt at cooking the full meal and I was very nervous. My parents were there but your father's were over seas, something to do with an uprising somewhere. Anyway we'd just finished moving into our first apartment together that week and I was rushed a little just to find all of my cooking utensils. Everything was almost done except for mashing the potatoes and that was when I found out that we didn't have a potato masher. It may sound silly but I almost cried because I didn't have a way to mash them. My mother came in about then to see if she could help, only to find me almost in tears. When I told her what the problem was, she just smiled and went over to the counter where we had a few empty soda bottles, soda used to come in heavy glass bottles instead of plastic ones. Anyway she washed it off in the sink and told me to use it to mash them."

"Did they turn out alright?" asked Kim.

"Everyone loved them." answered Anne. "As a matter of fact, I kept that bottle. It's in the kitchen cabinet under the coffee maker in a brown paper bag. I rinse it off every holiday and use it to mash the potatoes. I had it cover in a plastic resin so a chip of glass could never get mixed in." smiled Anne. "I call it my special holiday potato masher."

The two women smiled at each other before Kim said, "Mom, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that cooking the meal was so important to you."

"It's alright Kim." she said as she patted her daughter's hand. "I need to stop being an self old woman and pass it onto you and your family."

Unnoticed by both women, it was at that point that the swinging door to the kitchen finally finished closing.

"Mom, you are not being selfish and you are not old."

"Kim, I.."

It was then that a loud clatter came from the kitchen sounding like pots and pans hitting the floor.

Both women rushed back into the kitchen to find Ron dropping the turkey he and Kim had brought over to cook back into the roasting pan. The pan was sitting on the floor amidst several pans that had fallen and some diced vegetables. There was a large butter smear there too.

"What happened?" asked the two redheads almost at the same time.

"Well," started a mostly frantic Ron. "I was moving the turkey to the oven when I slipped and knock the pan on the floor. I sorta dropped the bird that fell out and I kicked it half way across the floor. I'll clean it up but I think I just ruined the diner."

"No you didn't." replied Anne, the look of tiredness gone as she accessed the damage and prepared tighten the sash on her robe. "We can't use your bird but I still have the one I was going to fix in the refrigerator. You two clear out and let me get to work."

"But I said I'd clean..." Ron started to say before his mother in law ushered him and his wife out of the kitchen so she could start cooking.

"Ronnnn!" started Kim.

""I said I was..." was as far as he got before his wife pulled him into a bone crushing hug and kiss and held him there till he stopped struggling.

When she finally broke the kiss, she said, "That was the best Christmas present I think you could have given her."

"But Kim. I just ruined the diner. I didn't mean.."

"Ron." came Anne's voice from the now opened door. "I've changed my mind. You made the mess in my pristine kitchen so you can clean it up."

With out missing a beat, Ron turned with a 'Yes mam.' and re entered the kitchen.

"I'll come help Ron." added Kim only to be met with her mother shaking her head no as she let the door close behind her and her son in law.

Anne had noticed several thing when she was alone in the kitchen. Things she almost overlooked. The butter smear on the floor looked more like when the twins had gotten hold of stick of margarine thinking it was a big soft crayon and had colored the floor with it. The vegetables were all diced to perfect and uniform looking more like they had come out of a can, when there were fresh ones still in the bag that the kids had brought. A freshly opened mixed vegetable can in the trash can confirmed their origin.

The turkey in the roasting pan, the one that Ron said he'd dropped and kicked across the floor still had an even coating of butter and spices on it showing no signs of that having been done. And there was no telltale imprint of turkey left in the smear on the floor.

Everything looked hastily staged and she wanted to find out.

"I'll take the ruined turkey home with me Mrs. Dr. P. I can cook it and let the neighborhood animals have a feast of their own." he said as he was almost finished cleaning up.

She had been busying herself, or at least making herself look busy while she watched him out of the corner of her eye.

"Ron. Would you do me a favor and get out my holiday potato masher and rinse it off please?"

Still wanting to please her and get out of the kitchen and out of her way, Ron went over to the kitchen cabinet under the coffee maker and pulled out a brown paper bag. Taking the plastic coated bottle out of it, he started washing it off.

It was while he was at the sink that he suddenly felt like he was being watched. Turning he saw Anne standing right behind him watching what he was doing. It was then he realized that he'd just been busted."

"You were listening in, weren't you Ron. Listening to my talk with Kim."

"I...I...I..." He then deflated before admitting what she'd said. "I just wanted to make sure we hadn't hurt your feelings. Kim sometimes glosses over things and doesn't tell me some things. I didn't mean to eavesdrop on any thing to personal. It just happened."

"You didn't really drop that turkey either."

"No. I just said that. I was going to take it down to the Temple where they are setting thing up to cook for the homeless this year, sharing Thanksgiving for them. That's why my folks won't be coming to later today."

It only took Anne a few seconds to make up her mind about what to do. If she declined his offer and they cooked his bird, then that would take away what he was trying to do.

Turning, she started to head out of the room.

"Mrs. Dr. P. Where are you going? You've got dinner to cook."

Turning with a smile on her face, she said, "I'm going upstairs to wake James and the twins. I'm finally going to take him u on his offer. They can take the turkey to your parents and stick around and help out there while 'we' prepare the dinner."

"We?"

"Yes. You, me and Kim. That is if you don't mind me talking and telling a few stories in the process." She said with a bigger smile on her face that didn't want to go away.

Less than a month later, Ron and Kim were once again in the Possible's home along with his parents and Hana for Christmas. Ron and his family may not believe in the reason for Christmas being Jewish, but they did believe in the effects of Christmas. Peace on earth and good will towards man. They had just finished opening their gifts and they were all moving into the dining room to eat the meal that Anne and Ron's mother had prepared together along with two very willing helpers as tales were passed on from both of the older women. It seemed that Ron's mother also had a few things to pass on the same way.

While both families were moving, Ann asked Kim and Ron to hold back for a minute. When they were alone, she handed them one last present saying the others wouldn't understand it's meaning. Kim also had a present to give her mother, saying the same thing.

Anne opened hers first. It was a large copy of the picture of a cranberry covered Kim that she'd kept hidden for so long, but the fading due to time was gone replaced with colors that made it look like it had just been taken.

"I had Wade enhance it Mom. I'm not worried anymore if people laugh at it. At least people I love."

As the two women hugged, Ron opened his and Kim's present. It was a plastic covered Bubble Up soda bottle.

Anne quickly explained, "No. It's not the one I keep in the kitchen. This was a company that stopped making this drink the year you two were born. The only reason I didn't give you the one I kept was because it has my memories. With this one, you can make your own this way."

Needless to say, they all had a very happy Christmas.

And as the years passed all of Kim and Ron's children all knew to proper way to make gravy.

xxxxxxxxxxx

The story about the potato masher happened to me back in college when I was having the first person that had ever treated me like more than a friend over for dinner.

The story about the gravy was inspired by a NPR broadcast about cooking for Thanksgiving entitled "The Chemistry of Cooking."

As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, PM me or put it in a review.

There is always room for improvement and nothing is written in stone.

 _(Well, nothing that you might want to change later anyway.)_


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